T+L Reports: Convenience Store for Women

Andrew Bender

May 20, 2009

With Japanese women's participation in the workforce at above 50 percent—and female-only cars already on subway and commuter trains—it was only a matter of time before the country's first convenience store for women opened its doors. Now those corporate ladies whom you'd expect to find shopping for a high-end handbag in Ginza have the all-hours pink-and-white Happily (3-11-15 Toranomon, Minato-ku; 81-3/ 3431-3424). The shop stocks all of the everyday basics—newspapers, bottled water. Customers can also choose from more than 2,500 kinds of cosmetics, dozens of skin-care products, tiny tiramisus, and even dietary supplements, in a mind-boggling array of colors. Got a run in your stockings?Pick up a pair and change into them in the powder room, which has a dressing table and full-length mirror. With 40,000 other convenience stores to compete against, Happily does everything it can to entice its female clientele, whether that means scenting the air with aromatic oils or carrying 600-calorie bento boxes.